Qualcomm CEO Confirms Arm's Withdrawal of License Breach Notice

[T0@st]

Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm's Chief Executive Officer, made a major announcement during a recent company earnings call. Since late last year, technology news outlets have kept a collective eye trained on legal wranglings involving the mobile processor specialist and Arm Holdings. Qualcomm won a partial victory in December—a Delaware jury unanimously found that the: "use of Oryon cores in its Snapdragon X processors for client PCs did not violate its licensing agreements with Arm." However, said jury did not deliver a unanimous verdict on the trial's other lines of query—soon after concluding, Arm filed a motion for a new session.

According to a relatively new Reuters follow-up report, Arm has terminated one of its pursuits. During Wednesday's (February 5) meeting with industry analysts, the Qualcomm boss declared: "Arm recently notified us that it was withdrawing its October 22, 2024 notice of breach, and indicated that it has no current plan to terminate the Qualcomm architecture license agreement." Amon and his colleagues are likely celebrating this development, as well as claimed "positive growth" for Snapdragon X Elite-powered devices. Industry watchdogs believe that Arm could file for a retrial in the near future. According to The Register, the two companies are due to face-off again—albeit under different circumstances: "Qualcomm continues to pursue another case against Arm, alleging the UK outfit didn't honor some of its contractual obligations. Arm reckons that matter will reach the courts in the first half of 2026."



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[Timbaloo]

Now that's a surprise. Not.

 

[hsew]

And now ARM looks like the next RAMBUS. They really screwed themselves over with this suit. The smarter thing would have been for them to just sit out the contract and then renegotiate when it came time for it to be renewed, because then they would have had Qualcomm by the nuts with the threat (with at least somewhat of a justification) not to renew. And they might even still do that, but the damage has already been done.

 

[trsttte]

And after all is said and done, only the lawyers got richer

And now ARM looks like the next RAMBUS. They really screwed themselves over with this suit. The smarter thing would have been for them to just sit out the contract and then renegotiate when it came time for it to be renewed, because then they would have had Qualcomm by the nuts with the threat (with at least somewhat of a justification) not to renew. And they might even still do that, but the damage has already been done.

They've been doing that all around with the way they've been trying to squeeze licensees. Even holding this until renewal - whenever that happens, honestly don't know how long is their aggreement valid for - wouldn't really work because they can't just go and ask more money for the same product to one of their customers, Qualcomm would rightly sue for unfair business practices.

ARM should have made sure they were right before doing this song and dance, they already had the trial ongoing, this notice of license termination was unnecessary and, along with all the chatter ARM was doing with 3rd parties, only gave more ammunition for Qualcomm to defend themselves.

Neither ARM nor Qualcomm are bastions of business ethics but ARM clearly fucked up here.

 

[hsew]

And after all is said and done, only the lawyers got richer



They've been doing that all around with the way they've been trying to squeeze licensees. Even holding this until renewal - whenever that happens, honestly don't know how long is their aggreement valid for - wouldn't really work because they can't just go and ask more money for the same product to one of their customers, Qualcomm would rightly sue for unfair business practices.

ARM should have made sure they were right before doing this song and dance, they already had the trial ongoing, this notice of license termination was unnecessary and, along with all the chatter ARM was doing with 3rd parties, only gave more ammunition for Qualcomm to defend themselves.

Neither ARM nor Qualcomm are bastions of business ethics but ARM clearly fucked up here.

Agreed, I’m just saying ARM would have looked far more reasonable and dare I say accommodating than they wound up looking by trying to expeditiously terminate the contract within X number of days.

But in reality, they could have asked for a different price. I’m sure ARM has varied their fees with chipmakers based on factors such as produced volume, regions of operation, and the length of the contract, to name a few variables. This will cause discrepancies in licensing fees between firms. And Apple gets a very big discount from what I understand, being a founding member of ARM as well as having a contract with them through 2040.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Gee, who called THIS one...

And now ARM looks like the next RAMBUS.

This is different. ARM is huge, much bigger than Rambus ever was.

Agreed, I’m just saying ARM would have looked far more reasonable and dare I say accommodating than they wound up looking by trying to expeditiously terminate the contract within X number of days.

Yup. This mess really made them look like children throwing a tantrum.